


baby you're not like the rest

by FreshBrains



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bisexuality, Crushes, Developing Relationship, F/F, Female Friendship, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Pining, Protectiveness, Running, Season/Series 03, Teen Romance, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“So your ex-boyfriend turned into a lizard?  I thought you were joking about that.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Jackson comes back, Cora talks about her feelings only while jogging, and Lydia is done with being kept in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby you're not like the rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keskasi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keskasi/gifts).



> I hope my recipient enjoys this gift...I had a blast writing it!

Lydia showed up on Cora’s front porch on the first day of school in a burgundy skirt and a sweater the color of fresh cream, her high heels digging into the peeling paint as she waited in front of the screen door.  “Well?  Are you going to let me in?”

Cora stood on the other side of the door, still in her pajama pants and baggy Fall Out Boy tee shirt.  She slurped the last of her cereal and peered into the kitchen where Derek was making coffee.  “Um, why?”

Lydia rolled her eyes.  “Because I’m taking you to school.”

“I already have a ride,” Cora said, sticking her thumb in Derek’s direction.

Lydia waved off the remark, flipping her shiny braid over her shoulder.  “Allison is going to private school this semester.  I need someone to hang out with.  Preferably someone who knows about creatures and creeps and everything else that’s apparently a part of my life now.”

Cora raised an eyebrow.  “What about Stiles?  Or Scott?  Or, like, anyone else?”

“A girl needs girlfriends, and the last time I checked, you fit all the criteria.  So, are you coming with me or not?”

Cora shrugged, setting her cereal bowl down on the stairs.  “I guess so.”  She started upstairs to change.

Lydia yelled, “Wear something cute.  Work with me.”

Cora sighed and closed her bedroom door, glad Lydia wasn’t a werewolf and couldn’t hear her heart hammer in her chest.  _Lydia Martin is outside waiting to take you to school,_ she thought, scrambling around her room, trying to find a pair of not-dirty jeans and a not-wrinkled shirt.  _Lydia Martin wants to be your friend._   She never missed Laura more than at that moment—she’d know what to say.

“Are you coming?” Lydia yelled, knocking on the door again.  Derek was still in the kitchen, pointedly ignoring her.

“Be right down,” Cora yelled back, and wondered how she was going to survive the school year—again.

*

Lydia picked Cora up every day before school.  There was never a verbal agreement and they never discussed it; she just showed up at the Hale house in stilettos and skirts, ready to cart Cora away.  Most of the car rides were spent in comfortable silence, the radio playing top 40, or Lydia chattering about how her math teacher knew as much about polynomials as a potato. 

“Too bad he’s so hot.  I can’t _stand_ stupid men,” Lydia said with a sigh, as if Mr. Cohen was a valid candidate for a homecoming date.

“I’m sure you could have any guy you wanted,” Cora said, playing _Bejeweled_ on her phone.

Lydia was quiet for a moment.  “I’m sure I could.  But my rule this year is _no_ high school boys.  I’m done with them.”

Cora’s heartbeat went up, as it so often did around Lydia.  She swallowed hard, watching the trees zoom past outside the car window.  “So, no boys at all?”  She waited for the “no boys, just men”answer all cute girls seemed to disappoint her with.

Lydia smiled, eyes ahead and trained on the road as they pulled into the school.  “No boys.  But high school _girls_ , on the other hand?  Totally fair game.”

Cora nearly jammed her thumb straight through her iPhone.

*

Stiles hated running with a passion, so Cora made him run with her every Tuesday after school on the track before she took him to Arby’s for curly fries.

“I see—you and Lydia—are getting close,” he wheezed, legs pumping hard to keep up. 

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re always together, for one thing.  And she talks about you all the time.”

Cora stumbled a little.  “Really?”

“Yeah, really.  She always talks about how grumpy you are and how you refuse to wear lavender or peach.”  He paused, hands on his knees.  “Okay, we’re _so_ taking a break.”

Cora jogged in place, adrenaline coursing too fast to slow down.  “I’m just a placeholder for Allison.”

Stiles scoffed.  “You must not see how they interact.  They never stop talking when they’re together.”

“So I’m just a prop?”  Cora knew she was making things difficult, but if she had a chance of figuring out how Lydia really felt about her, she knew she’d get the real deal from Stiles.

“Not at all,” Stiles said, stretching his arm muscles, a sheen of sweat coming through his shirt.  “She says you’re a good companion.  You don’t give her shit, but you don’t _take_ her shit.  And trust me, Lydia picks her friends pretty carefully.  I don’t think she’d have anything to do with you if she couldn’t stand you.”

“I guess,” Cora said, still not sure.  Lydia liked her, okay—but as a friend?  A confidant?

Cora didn’t want any more friends.  She wanted _Lydia._

*

After she got home from her first Friday track practice, Cora leaned against the front door, jamming the handle into the drywall in the exact way Derek always told her not to.  She hitched one leg up to untie her sneakers.  “So, I met this super-douche today outside the school.”

“It’s high school, they’re all super-douches,” Derek said from the dining room, where he sat on the table going over the recent Beacon Hills Preserve littering complaints that always flooded in during the summer. 

“Scott isn’t,” Cora grumbled, dropping her shoes in the middle of the hallway just to annoy Derek.

“What about Stiles?” Derek said, not looking up from his paper.  “Or Isaac?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cora said, padding into the kitchen in her stocking feet in search of leftovers.  “You’ve made your point.  But _god,_ this dude was awful.  I was walking to Lydia’s car after track—“

“Since when does Lydia wait for you after track?” Derek glanced up.

Cora ignored him, walking to the fridge.  She grabbed the milk carton and took a long swig before wiping her mouth on her maroon Beacon Hills High hoodie.  “So I’m walking to Lydia’s car, and this guy pulls out of the lot in his fancy-ass Porsche like he owns the place…tires screeching, sunglasses on, music blasting.  Then he has the nerve to _honk_ at me, and I was on the fucking crosswalk.”  She slams the milk back into the fridge, a fresh wave of annoyance washing over her.  “So naturally, I gave him the finger.”

“Naturally,” Derek said.

“Then instead of just driving away like a normal person, he sticks his head out of the window and yells ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going, sweetheart’?  Like, how condescending is _that_?”

“He sounds like your average asshole teenager,” Derek said, tossing his papers aside.  “One more year and you’re out of there.  Then you’ll just have to deal with asshole _adults_.”

“It bothered Lydia, too,” Cora said.  “When I got in the car, she was super quiet, and smelled nervous.  She said that the guy bothered her and she wished he’d just go away.”

Derek hummed in assent, rustling his files together, before pausing and looking up at Cora.  “Wait.  Did you say that guy was driving a Porsche?”

*

“So your ex-boyfriend turned into a lizard?  I thought you were joking about that.”  Cora settled into the couch next to Stiles.  They called a pack meeting, which always took place at the Hale house.  Isaac sat on the floor, Allison and Scott on the love-seat, and Lydia in the armchair.

“A _kanima_ ,” Lydia said, exasperated.  “Why is it always the kanima?” 

“And he’s a werewolf now,” Stiles added, stretching out on the battered sofa.  “He turned after Lydia showed him true love or something.”

“Kill me now,” Lydia grumbled, massaging her temples.  “Yeah, he was my boyfriend.  We were terrible together but I still loved him, and then he went traipsing off to Europe.”

“I sort of creeped on his Facebook page,” Allison offered sheepishly, glancing at Lydia.  “He said he was back to graduate, but would leave again after.”

“So did he leave because he was a kanima?”  Cora would never understand humans, or bitten werewolves, or lizard people.

“No, he left because he’s a giant jerk and he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself,” Lydia grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.  “And because your brother bit him and turned him into a monster, but that’s beside the point, I suppose.”

“I get that he seems like a dick, but why didn’t he just stay here?  I mean, I know how it is to be without pack, especially as a young wolf,” Cora said.

“Jackson was never in it for the pack,” Scott said, the first thing he’d uttered all afternoon.  “He wanted to be powerful, and he got it.”

Everyone quieted a bit, the news weird and sobering.  Cora kept gravitating back to Lydia, who sat curled in the armchair, her bare feet pressed against the fabric.  She nibbled on a hangnail, something Cora _never_ saw her do.  She seemed pensive in a non-Lydia way, a way that couldn’t be solved like trigonometry or calculus, and it made Cora feel itchy in her own skin.  “You okay?” She nudged Lydia with her toe.

“I don’t want him back here,” Lydia said softly.  “I was just getting back to normal after the Nemeton and the alpha pack.  He’s the last thing I need.”

“We’re here for you,” Scott said, squeezing Lydia’s arm.  Allison reached up and scratched her fingernails against Lydia’s bare knee, a best-friend gesture Cora was oddly jealous of.  “All of us.”

 _I won’t let him near you,_ Cora thought, her wolf growling inside of her.  But she didn’t dare say it out loud.

*

That night, Cora looked up Jackson Whittemore on Facebook.

She was _not_ impressed.

*

“Look, I know you want to help Lydia, but I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Allison said, peering over a shelf full of peanut butter jars.  She had a half-full shopping basket in one hand, her grocery trip interrupted by Cora sneaking up on her in the deli.

Cora ignored Allison’s comment, keeping her eyes trained on the black leather jacket perusing the snacks an aisle over.  “We’re not _kidnapping_ him, jeez.  I just want to get a good look at him, see what I’m up against.”

Allison snorted out a laugh.  “I don’t think you’re up against anything.  Lydia won’t even talk to him, he’s not a threat if you wanted to…” she trailed off, cheeks turning pink.

Cora looked over, eyebrows raised.  “If I wanted to what?”

“If you wanted to ask her out,” Allison said in a rush, suddenly very interested in a jar of Skippy.

Cora made a choked-off scoffing noise, the type of noise that usually came before a lie.  “I don’t want to ask Lydia out.  She can hardly stand me, and anyway, I’m not her type.”

Allison smiled a little, ducking down to bury her face in her green scarf.  “Then what is _your_ type, may I ask?”  She tugged Cora’s sleeve, pulling her down the baking supplies aisle.

Cora grumbled in assent, following Allison.  “Tall, athletic, smart, confident.  The usual, I don’t know.”

“Hm,” Allison hummed, peering down the aisle as she pretended to inspect a box of baking soda.  “Lydia’s pretty much all of those except athletic.  She played volleyball for a little bit, though.”

“It sounds like you _want_ me to date Lydia,” Cora said. 

Allison smiled, nudging Cora with the shopping basket.  “I want both of you to be happy.  I mean, I haven’t known you for very long, and I know we have our differences,” she said, and Cora rolled her eyes.  “But I care about you both.  You and Lydia are good together.  You balance each other out.”

Cora shrugged like a petulant child, scuffing the toe of her running shoe onto the grocery store linoleum.  “We’re just friends.  Besides, the last thing I want to do is get involved with a girl whose ex just moved back to town.”

“Allison?” 

Both girls turned, broken out of their moment of girl-talk, to see Jackson at the end of the aisle, eyebrow raised.

Allison’s cheeks colored and she lifted a weak hand.  “I heard you were back.”

His eyebrow remained raised, jaw ticking.  “And you decided to spy on me already.  Flattering, I didn’t realize I was so missed.”

Allison rolled her eyes, face still pink.  “What did you expect me to do?  I’m Lydia’s best friend.  It’s my job to scope out her terrible ex-boyfriends.”

Cora awkwardly organized cans of powdered milk, trying to ignore the sharp, slightly sour smell of a recently-bitten werewolf.  They tended to smell like babies, no matter how old they were, and Cora always associated the scent with bad behavior.  Judging by the leather jacket, perfectly tousled hair, and cocky smirk, Jackson had bad behavior to spare.

Jackson shrugged, like he was totally unfazed by Allison’s remark, though his scent sharpened to mild anger.  He nodded at her.  “Who’s your little wolf friend?”

Cora looked up, brow already knit in irritation.  “This little wolf friend is a _born_ werewolf, which you’d be able to sniff out if your instincts had sharpened at all.”  She crossed her arms over her chest.  “And thanks for almost running me over in the parking lot after _you_ were spying on _Lydia._ ”

Jackson scoffed.  “I wasn’t spying on her.  I was getting my class schedule for the rest of the semester.  And who even _are_ you?”

Cora stood tall, back straight.  “I’m Cora Hale.”

Jackson’s face fell.  “There’s another one?”

*

“Is this what you always do on your free time?” Cora squirmed in her simple black tankini next to Lydia’s heated pool.  It was late September, already scarf-and-boot weather, but the day was sunny and windless.

“Sometimes I shop,” Lydia chirped, flicking back a page of _Mathematics Magazine_.  “Sometimes I solve mysteries with Stiles.  But this is pretty relaxing, don’t you think?” 

 _For you,_ Cora thought, trying not to stare at Lydia’s long, baby-oiled legs and the high cut of her pale pink bikini.  “I don’t remember the last time I went swimming.”  They hung out almost every day after school when Cora didn’t have practice, but Lydia usually just did her homework while Cora listened to music or played computer games.

“You’ll get used to it, sweetie,” Lydia said, only half-paying attention.  “But before we head in, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay,” Cora said slowly, tugging her towel around her bare stomach. 

Lydia swiveled on her chair, facing Cora.  Her hair fell over her shoulder in sun-warm waves.  “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

Cora put on her best blank face.  “Who?”

Lydia rolled her eyes.  “You know who.  Allison told me you saw Jackson yesterday.”

“We weren’t spying,” Cora said.  “Not really, at least.”

“So?” Lydia tapped her wedge-sandaled-foot impatiently.  “What do you think?”

“We didn’t exactly stand around and bond in the cereal aisle.”  _If I talked to him any longer, I’d rip his sneering throat out for even mentioning you._

“But you could smell him.”  Lydia softened, slumping in her chair.  “I literally haven’t spoken to him since he left.  What if he spent the last few months ripping apart European tourists or something?  He already screwed this town up once.  Will he do it again?”

Cora was never great at gauging other people’s emotions—and Lydia was exceptionally good at _hiding_ her emotions.  But Cora could tell she was uneasy.  “He didn’t smell off or anything.  Usually, uh, _bad_ werewolves have a sharper scent.  Like blood.”  She didn’t tell Lydia how young he smelled, how new and afraid.

Lydia rolled her shoulders, returning to her magazine.  “You would tell me if he did thought, right?”

Cora nodded.  “Of course.  I won’t let him hurt you, Lydia.”  She flushed, and stood before Lydia could respond.  “I’m diving in.  You coming?”

“In a second,” Lydia said, smiling gently.

*

Cora ran through the preserve, enjoying the burn in her legs and hips.  After months of staying cramped and unchanged in captivity, running felt like freedom, and she ran even after track meets or practice.  Her afternoon jogs with Stiles were nothing in comparison to blazing through the woods with glowing eyes like a streak of lightning.

But she had a goal after Monday practice.

“Look alive,” Cora yelled.  “Faster, stronger werewolf coming through.”

Jackson whipped around, blue eyes wide, and skidded to a halt.  He almost lost traction on the wet leaves but saved himself at the last minute. 

Cora slowed to a jog, allowing a smug smile to cross her face.  “If you were any good, you would’ve heard me coming from a mile away.”

He tugged his ear-buds away, the muffled sound of Arctic Monkeys drifting through the preserve.  “If you were anything like your brother, you’d leave me the hell alone.”

Cora wiped sweat off her brow with her wrist.  “Jog with me, Jackson.  We need to have a chat.”

Jackson raised an eyebrow.  “You know I’m not in your little pack, right?  I’m a lone wolf.”

Cora burst out laughing.  “Only dead wolves say shit like that.  A lone wolf is an omega, and omegas never last long.”  _I would know, I was one for years._

“I lasted long enough while I was gone,” he said, shuffling his Adidas in the leaves defiantly like a little boy. 

Cora itched to move again, so she jogged ahead a bit.  “Seriously, just run with me.  It’ll feel good to run with another wolf.”  She looked back, ponytail whipping her cheek. 

“I’m still not in your pack,” he called, but followed.

*

By the time the streetlights went on, Cora and Jackson were both sweaty, dirty, and exhausted—they’d run the perimeter of the preserve three times over and Cora was no closer to not hating Jackson Whittemore.

He was smug, cocky, way too confident in his abilities as both a human being and a werewolf, and completely opposed to any sort of advice Cora could offer him.  He interrupted too much, bragged too much, and called Cora ‘Hale,’ which she couldn’t stand.  Sure, Cora was known to be sort of an asshole herself, so there was something about him that made Cora smile, something she missed from her days when she was a little kid and Derek was a cocky teenager.  But he was still an asshole, and there was still Lydia…and, well, Lydia was Lydia, and she was Cora’s number-one priority.

“So tell me why you really found me here,” Jackson said, his breathing barely sped up.  “I know it wasn’t just for my pleasant company.”

“I like Lydia,” Cora said bluntly.  “Actually, I more than like her.  And I want to protect her.”

Jackson stiffened, eyes glowing a little.  “I would _never_ hurt Lydia, ever.”

“You sort of already did.”

“I know,” Jackson said, softening.  “I know.  And it was the worst thing I ever did.  And trust me, Hale, I’ve done a lot of stupid shit.”

“I believe it,” Cora said dryly.  “She doesn’t want you here.  You have no idea what the last few months have been like for her, Jackson, she’s…” Cora trailed off, feeling the humiliation of tears in her eyes.  “She’s _special_ , so special.  She’s amazing.  And you don’t deserve her.”

“Well, I don’t _have_ her, so I don’t think you have to worry,” Jackson snapped, airing out his tee shirt.  “So you can play guard dog all you want, it’s not like it matters.”  He headed out of the preserve towards the highway, leaving Cora behind in the darkening woods.

She considered going after him before turning around and making her way home, half-shifted with a tight feeling in her chest.

*

“What did you do?”

Cora startled, feeling foolish for not hearing Lydia coming.  She was knee-deep in a new Stephen King novel and feeling half-drugged under the fall sun in the backyard, but once Lydia appeared, the air smelled like ozone.  “What are you talking about?”

“He came to my house,” Lydia said, stomping into the backyard.  She looked more disheveled than Cora had ever seen her, her hair falling loose from her ponytail, her jeans going untucked from her fuzzy boots.  “He said you attacked him in the woods.  Why the hell would you do that?”

Cora sat up, her book falling out of her lap and into the grass.  “We went for a run, Lydia, I didn’t _attack_ him.”

“He said you ambushed him and told him to stay away from me.  Is that true?”  Lydia stood in front of Cora, hands balled into fists, tears pricking her eyes.  It made Cora ache to see her so upset, so vulnerable—it just wasn’t Lydia.  And Cora did that to her.

She nodded, looking down into the grass so Lydia couldn’t see her flush.  “I didn’t tell him to stay away, but I did tell him not to hurt you.”  She swallowed hard.  “I told him he didn’t deserve you.”

Lydia ran a hand through her hair, neck red with anger.  “He _obviously_ doesn’t deserve me.  I would never in a million years get in a relationship with him again.  I don’t need you to protect me; I’m doing a pretty decent job of that on my own.”

“But see, the thing is,” Cora said before she could stop herself, “it doesn’t matter how strong you are, or how smart, or how much you ignore him.  He’s a werewolf.  He could kill you.”

“So could _you,_ ” Lydia fired back, fists planted on her hips.

Cora opened her mouth to speak, and closed it.  “You’re right.  It’s not like I was _born_ like this, or that I had an alpha mother who trained me how to be a werewolf, or that my brother and I have built a safe, stable pack from the ground up.  Yeah, I’m totally the same as some spoiled shit omega who rolls into town like he owns the place.”  It was her turn to feel tears in her eyes, and she grabbed her book with shaking fingers.  “Whatever, Lydia.”

She turned to go back into the house, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“Wait,” Lydia said, voice weak with defeat, and it was such a foreign sound coming from her that Cora halted.  “Cora, come on.  I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean?”  Cora didn’t turn around.

“They’ve all tried to keep me away from the bad,” Lydia said softly.  “Scott, Stiles, Allison.  But I just keep getting into trouble.  And now Jackson’s back and he was _always_ my trouble.  I can’t ask you to deal with that.”

“I can deal with Jackson.  He’s not a problem.”

“Then tell me what the problem is.  Just don’t act like I can’t handle anything.”  Lydia wrapped her own arms around herself.  Cora wanted to scoop her up and keep her warm.

“I’m sorry I went to Jackson behind your back, Lydia,” Cora said, turning around.  Her anger had already melted into a sour ache in her chest.  Her wolf whined low and sad deep inside of her, not even fighting to get out.  “I just wanted you to trust me.  I can’t help but want to take care of you, and that doesn’t mean babying you, or keeping you in the dark, or making you feel stupid.  It means that I want—I need—you to be _safe_.”  She took a deep breath.  “I just…”

Lydia took two steps across the yard towards Cora and kissed her, gentle and sweet and hurried with the slow-turning falls leaves crunching under their boots, their lips unsure but eager.  She twined her arms around Cora’s neck and Cora wrapped an arm around Lydia’s waist, her skin warm beneath her sweater.

Their lips came apart with a soft noise and Cora growled gently, not willing to let Lydia go yet, wanting to hold her close all day.  “Wow.”

Lydia pulled back, licking her bottom lip, smiling devilishly.  “How was that?”

Cora laughed, feeling the tips of her ears burning pink.  “Like you need me to tell you.”

“It’s still nice to hear sometimes.”

Cora nodded, ducking in for another kiss—she wasn’t too experienced and she sure as hell hadn’t kissed as many people as Lydia had, but Lydia’s lips were soft beneath hers, and she rested her palms on Cora’s shoulders to steady herself.  She pulled away again, breath heavy.  “So?  You tell _me_.”

Lydia grinned, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to Cora’s.  “Perfect.  Just perfect.”  She held Cora’s hand, their fingers warming each other’s.  “Just promise me one thing.  You keep me safe, but let me keep _you_ safe.  Don’t try to take everything on by yourself, okay?  This town has enough brave martyred werewolves.”

Cora laughed and kissed the center of Lydia’s palm.  “I think I can do that.”

*

After calling Cora the night before, Lydia brought Jackson to the Hale house.  Cora let them in, her back rigid as Jackson brushed past her, and they sat at the kitchen table with Derek hovering in the background.  Cora reached across the table and took Lydia’s hand; Lydia squeezed her fingers back.

“I don’t like that you’re here and you’re not pack, Jackson,” Derek said, crossing his arms over his chest.  “But I have a feeling you wouldn’t come unless you had a good reason.”

Jackson sighed, leaning back in his chair.  “Lydia gave me an ultimatum—join the pack or get lost.  Territory disputes and all that boring crap, she knows more about it than I do.  So here I am.”

Cora flushed with pride at Lydia’s werewolf knowledge, giving her a smile of encouragement, but Derek wasn’t impressed.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Jackson held his hands up.  “I’m not kidding, I swear.  I’m doing it because it’s what I need to do.”  He picked at his nails—even when humbled, he was nothing shy of cocky.  “I need to get stronger, and you two need to teach me.”

“And why the hell would we do that?”  Derek smelled curious, but not angry, so Cora waited for Jackson’s response.

Jackson shrugged.  “She said I needed to be trained by the strongest werewolf she knows.  She said I need to be trained by a winner.”  He looked up at Cora.  “And that means _you,_ Hale.”

Cora bit her lip, glancing at Lydia again, who just licked her lips and nudged Cora’s knee under the table _._   “Just so we’re clear, I’ll help you because Lydia thinks it’ll be best for the pack.  I still can’t really stand you.”  She looked up at Derek, who nodded in permission.  “Do you trust me?”

Jackson warily held out his hand.  “Lydia trusts you, and that’s good enough for me.”

It was good enough for Cora, too.  “Deal.”

From across the table, Lydia gave off a sweet scent, a scent that made Cora’s neck feel warm and her eyes water.  It was a heady smell, not too strong but so _there,_ and Cora had only given it off a few times in her life.

Complete and utter peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine this as occurring sometime after 3A in the canon timeline. And Jackson is a prominent character, and he has his douche moment, but there's no Jackson hate in this fic.
> 
> Title from Demi Lovato's "Give Your Heart a Break."


End file.
